Milo Manara

Manara is an iconic Italian comics superstar. I really love the rawness of his early work on the Jolanda and Genius series. In the 60’s fumetti neri, or black comics, became popular in Italy and revolved around a sinister character named Diabolik. From what I understand, Genius was a spin off of the Diabolik series. These comics were for adult audiences and contained eroticism which opened the door for subsequent more sexually explicit comics. Jolanda de Almaviva was a countess that was kidnapped by pirates while traveling to meet the Governor of Maracaybo. The serialized adventure appeared in 1971 (written by Francisco Rubino) and tells of her ongoing trials and tribulations. There was plenty of swashbuckling action as clothes and limbs were removed easily and often. The piracy aspect lended itself to visits to exotic locales where Jolanda and the rest of the crew were subjected to all kinds of adventures…and surprise- their clothes came off. Manara took the opportunity to make each panel as interesting as possible, filling the backgrounds with plenty of detail. However, when the clothes came off, he was careful not to add too much that would distract from the natural beauty of his ladies.